The announcement of the shortlist for the FT’s Business Book of the Year is always interesting – tellingly, the article about it in yesterday’s paper had the headline A reading list to reflect loss of faith in capitalism. As ever, I’ve read some, but not all, of the titles, so it adds some interesting new ones to my reading list. Of the shortlist, I’ve reviewed Why Nations Fail, Paper Promises and What Money Can’t Buy.

I’ve gone back through the months since January 2012 to pick out my own longish shortlist for The Enlightened Economist Prize (the criterion is that I happened to read them in the past 12 months, and my non-economics reading is excluded).

The list is:

Debt: The First 5000 Years David Graeber

Capitalist Revolutionary: John Maynard Keynes Roger Backhouse and Bradley Bateman

Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman

Keynes-Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics Nicholas Wapshott

The End of Money David Wolman

Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World Nicholas Shaxson

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

Working Hard, Working Poor: A Global Journey Gary Fields

The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East Timur Kuran

The New Industrial Revolution: Consumers, Globalization and the End of Mass Production Peter Marsh

Economic Fables Ariel Rubinstein

Positive Linking: How Networks Can Revolutionise the World Paul Ormerod

Dark Pools: The rise of AI trading machines and the looming threat to Wall Street Scott Patterson

The Quest for Prosperity; How Developing Economies Can Take Off Justin Yifu Lin

The winner of The Enlightened Economist economics book of 2012 will also be announced in September. I can’t offer a cash prize but will be delighted to offer a nice dinner in London to the winning author(s).

The prize – dinner’s on me